Xiaomi could be the next brand, after Samsung, caught “cheating” in performance tests

Performance testing applications often block certain devices that they suspect are manipulating the results. They do not necessarily have to improve performance in tests to be blocked, but the mere fact that the performance profile is limited in other applications is enough to lead to delisting from the database with results. Samsung recently experienced this with the S22, S21, S20 and S10 series, and Xiaomi could be the next manufacturer in line.

Xiaomi limits the performance of phones in certain games

According to John Poole, co-founder of Geekbench, Xiaomi also seems to limit performance in certain games. He posted on his Twitter account some results using a Xiaomi Mi 11, trying to hide the identity of the Geekbench test under the name of popular mobile games, such as Fortnite or Genshin Impact.

It seems that Xiaomi is also trying to limit the performance of Qualcomm processors from the inside in such games, in order to reduce power consumption and lower their running temperature. In the Geekbench “disguised” in Fortnite, the results are 30% weaker in the Single-Core test and 15% weaker in the Multi-Core than when running the application independently, with its original ID.

This also happens when Geekbench is disguised as other games such as Genshin Impact.

– John Poole (@jfpoole) March 27, 2022

Also, the problem of Geekbench is not mandatory throttling the processor in certain applications, but the lack of transparency of these companies. If it had known that certain applications are limited, there would be no problems, but Xiaomi does not mention such “optimizations” anywhere. Thus, synthetic tests are not very valuable, therefore, as the performance you can achieve in them is not available in other applications.

Samsung had a list of more than 10,000 popular applications that limited the performance of Exynos and Snapdragon processors, while OnePlus was caught with similar practices in 2021, around the launch of OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro.

Geekbench has not yet made a decision on Xiaomi, so its phones are still listed in its database.

source: Android Authority